Responsive - Bear Week 1 and 2 16th

My group for responsive consists of Sophie from Graphic design, Bronte from Illustration and of course, myself. We met up and discussed our ideas for what briefs interested us as we were undecided whether to choose the Bear brief or the adobe brief. We also used our first meeting as a way of guaging whether we would be good working together, and in the end we all agreed that individually we could bring different skills and assets to the group. For Bronte, her illustrative techniques would benefit our group, and Sophie's knowledge of typography and composition would benefit our group as well. I felt that I could bring more of a character narrative to the drawings as it is a very well put together brand with characters that are interesting to children and have a lot of personality.

After a discussion, we all decided to go for the Bear brief as we felt it would be a great opportunity to utilise our own skills to create an interesting response. We all decided to meet up the week after and present our ideas that we would accumulate individually throughout the week.

I decided to create a mood board in order to gain further understanding of the Bear brand, as well as a visual representation of the colour palette that the brand uses.

From creating this, I instantly knew that their aesthetic is a very well rounded and bold one. They're use of block colours let you know that it is a children's brand, and their illustrations are clear and interesting.

I also created a mind map as a way of separating individual and important aspects of the brand, including the various snacks that they have to offer as well as the target audience.  

The themes that the company have already had are Time Travel, Species School and Around the world. 

I also took note on how the Bear on their packaging is treated like a real bear by children, which I thought was quite cute.

Because they're quite a playful brand that aims to educate children in such a quirky and individual way, I decided to attempt to come up with some brief concepts and ideas to present to the group when we would next meet up. A theme that stood out to me and that hadn't been done by the brand before was an underwater type theme.

 I also considered such things as aesthetics and games that we could involve in our responses. The brand so far produces packaging that is quite flat so I considered utilising textures such as crayons because it would be familiar to children, and would stand out against other children's snacks as a lot of them lean towards creating clear designs rather than interesting ones.

Meeting with Group

During our second meeting after we all went off and did our own initial research, I decided to take some notes. Bronte prepared a short presentation that involved some initial research into the brand as well as some Illustrators that would be perfect inspiration for what we want to achieve.

We instantly all agreed on the Under water/ Sea creature theme that we all suggested. We also discussed various ways which the cards could be used. We played around with the idea of the cards being magnetic, and how they could fit together on a fridge to create a large image of an underwater theme. This then grew into the concept of having a poster which kids would send off for to obtain, and for the cards to be able to stick onto the poster to create a poster in itself. There would be gaps and outlines for where the cards would fit in so children can build a little collection. This made us consider how we want our designs to be child friendly, but we also would like them to be posters that could still be appropriate for when the children grew older. We want something contemporary and timeless.

The facts that we would use on the cards would be interesting and quirky. I suggested maybe even having the latin name of the creatures to fill in the gaps on the small card. The main focus on the cards would be the illustration of the sea creature on the front, and the back would be full of little facts about that creature. 

Our roles

As a group we put forward our strengths and whats we all think we could contribute to the project. 

Bronte - Illustrations of the creatures.

Sophie - Typography and composition.

Me -Helping with illustrations, colour palette.

We decided to give me and Bronte the job to create the illustrations as a collaborative situation where we would split the designs between the two of us. I feel as though I can bring more of a narrative to the characters and also give them more of a personality that would be intriguing for children.

Anorak Mag

Anorake mag was brought to our attention by Bronte. The magazine is "A Happy Mag for Kids" that is full of modern illustration that completely turn the concept of a children's magazine on it's head because of the dynamic illustrations and fun compositions. We want to take inspiration from their layouts and block colours because of how unique and modern their layouts and designs are.

Rob Hodgson

Rob Hodgson is an illustrator that we all decided would be a great person to reference for our own illustrations of the fishes. His work involves a lot of textures and has a cut-out aesthetic. Our aim is to combine textures with block, cut out shapes in our illustrations so we all feel this illustrator is a good reference in our design process.

Fun Facts

In our meeting I suggested that I should research into the fun facts that we should use for our Bear fact cards. I decided to write down brief ideas that came to mind that corresponded with the fact. For example: the call of blue whales is the loudest sound made by any animal on the planet would be represented by a Whale with it's mouth wide open as if it was yelling. As a group we all agreed that we would experiment with our own ideas first that were loosely based off our whole concept and then come together in the next meeting and discuss what we all had done. I decided to create this fun fact sheet and then a couple of sketches that played around with textures as well as corresponding with the fishes facts.

When creating this sheet I also factored in our target audiences and made notes on some facts that would probably not be appropriate for children.

Initial sketches

When I started to create some sketches, I decided to reference the facts that I had accumulated and use water colour, fine liner and pencil as an attempt to experiment with textures.

I chose to draw a catfish because their fact was that they have amazing taste buds. To depict this through an illustration, I decided to draw the catfish as if he was a gourmet food taster. I gave him a fork that looked like a little trident to fit in with the underwater theme. I exaggerated his whiskers to make them look like a mustache and also gave him a little top hat to give him more character.

I also decided to draw a shark that has rough skin because the fact was that sharks have rough skin that are like little sharp teeth. I decided to use a light blue wash of colour because even though sharks are more grey, children identify with them being a blue hue. I quite like how the mixture of texture and tones turned out, however the colours are a little too light and the image could get lost with the blue sea background. 

I also decided to create a sketch based off the goblin shark, The fact was that they have a resemblance to a goblin, so I simplified the body and features, but gave the character a pointed goblin ear, as well as a little brown hat. I used a black fine liner to outline to make the image clear, however I feel like the black lines make the image look unproffessional and I think our illustrations have the opportunity to be really interesting if we use various outlines and textures.

I created a couple more initial sketches like the yelling whale, a pregnant boy sea horse and an old man jelly fish. 

Even though these sketches are very rough and messy, I feel like they have a lot of potential to turn out to be interesting illustrations with water colours and crayon textures that are also heavily influenced by character design aspects.

Overall, I feel as though these past two weeks have proven to be successful. The group that I am in seem to have various skills that we can all apply successfully to create an interesting and unique response to this brief. My approach to the illustrations so far has been a narrative driven one, where I am basing the characters appearance on the facts, I hope to present these to my group and see what they think.